


No Way Out but Through

by Loudest_Voice



Category: Naruto
Genre: Clan Politics, Coming of Age, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Refugees, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-07
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 21:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/958073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loudest_Voice/pseuds/Loudest_Voice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all teams achieve harmony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Outside

**Author's Note:**

> So when I first started writing the main story in this series, I meant for Mikoto to be a much more important character. Then the pacing got the best of me (I have to learn how to stop that from happening) and I didn't get to write the backstory I wanted for Mikoto.
> 
> I wrote on the side anyway, hoping I'd get to include it at some point. Then I decided to make it a side story. Then my computer had a seizure and I lost what I'd written. I decided to write it anyway and challenged myself to keep all the scenes short. I have to learn how to deal with pacing sometime, right?

The first time Mikoto sees snow, it’s falling on incoming refugees from the Hidden Eddy Village. She’s at one of the village watchtowers with the rest of her class quietly trying to guess which refugees will cause trouble for the chuunin at the gates. They aren’t causing any trouble, not even when the chuunin demand that they surrender their headbands. It bothers Mikoto that they don’t. She doesn’t have a headband yet but when she earns it, only death will pry it from her fingers.

Mikoto puts her hand out the tower window, wondering how snow feels when it hits the skin. It’s like being poked with the tip of a cold feather. She takes her arm back and stares at the snowflakes on her forearm. Soon, they’re water droplets sliding off her skin.

“Fire Country hasn’t seen snow for more than a decade,” says Minato Namikaze, who’s standing beside her. He’s only nine and looks even younger—has to use chakra to half climb to the windowsill otherwise his blue eyes wouldn’t catch anything outside the tower. Nevertheless, he’s still ahead of everyone else in their class, Mikoto included. She wants to hate him for it—looks like she won’t be graduating at the top their class, after all—but the sad truth is he’s too polite and unassuming to inspire anger. “Must be colder than usual over in Water country,” Minato continues, biting his lower lip. “It’ll be a bloody year for them even if their harvest was good.”

“Then I guess we’ll probably get more escort missions from people wanting to go that way,” says Mikoto.

Minato begins to say something but their teacher silences them with a glare and gestures at the incoming refugees. Their classmates are beginning to whisper and Mikoto doubts they’re discussing weather patterns and their effects on revenue. Sometimes, Mikoto wonders if they realize they're supposed to be on guard all the time, always trying to learn from their surroundings though in all fairness, she doesn’t think watching a procession of hunched-over old people and skinny children is going to teach them anything they don’t already know. If they don’t fight outsiders tooth and nail, Konoha will be razed to the ground and the survivors will have the scatter across the globe. Just like whatever’s left of Uzushiogakure.

Hours later, when they half-hearted snow has stopped, they’re finally allowed to return home. It’s much later than usual. Mikoto barely has time to respond to Minato’s goodbyes before she’s running through the village roofs as fast she can. Rakshasha— _Elder_ Rakshasha now—will not be pleased with her tardiness, never mind the reason for it. Mikoto's so harried she almost slips on the sloshing ice when she makes it to the Uchiha compound. She regains her footing before she does something embarrassing like break her neck, but some of her cousins still laugh at her. Fair enough. No ninja should ever slip on anything.

* * *

Her family does not approve of the Hidden Eddy refugees. The Elders argue about it all the time . . . well, they argue with Rakshasha about it, who thinks welcoming them to Konoha was the best thing they could have done. “At least _some_ of the ones we let in must know Sealing,” she tells her peers.

“Sarutobi just opened our gates and let all the riffraff in,” argues Elder Hideaki. “We’ll be lucky if even one of them can tell the Cursed Seal from their asshole.”

“Not that it matters either way,” adds Elder Kazuhiko. “They have no reason to share any of their secrets. No demands have been made of them.”

Mikoto thinks swearing to give up their careers as ninja is more than just a demand, but she knows better than to interrupt. Her only job at these meetings is to keep her mouth shut and fetch tea and/or sake whenever commanded.

“You mean besides revenge?” says Rakshasha. “They’ll pass on whatever they know to their children and their children will join our Academies. That’s how you assimilate a subset of jutsu. Get the knowledge and then offer it to home grown talent.”

“Meanwhile, our rivals negotiate with all fully realized Sealing masters!”

“Maybe two or three escaped,” dismisses Rakshasha. “Let Kumo enjoy a couple of self-important geniuses with chips on their shoulders.”

The argument goes on circles before the Elders leave, most of them shooting Rakshasha ugly looks. They’re still angry that she managed to convince Seiji-sama to agree with the Hyuuga and the rest of the clans about accepting so many Hidden Eddy refugees, especially since none of the surviving Eddy jounin agreed to come along.

“Those idiots let their hatred for the Hyuuga cloud their already poor judgment,” Rakshasha mumbles while helping Mikoto clean up. Her white hair is coming off its bun and she seems too inebriated to care. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Besides, we got what we needed out of Uzushio. For once, kindness is a luxury we can afford.”

Maybe. Mikoto has heard that Konoha stole some great weapon from Uzushio, something that will keep even Kumo from trying anything for quite a while. What it might be, she has no idea. She’ll have to keep her ears to the ground, especially when it’s Rakshasha’s turn to host the Elder meetings. Also, the rest of the village will be abuzz with rumors about the refugees for a while yet. Mikoto feels the truth buzzing about the air. She just needs to pay attention.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the chuunin and merchants don’t have much to say about the Eddy refugees. Mikoto supposes that destitute children and hunched over grandparents without a _ryo_ to their name don’t inspire much gossip. Aside from vague arguments among the Elders, Mikoto hears no more about the Eddy refugees for weeks.

* * *

Competition among pre-genin becomes frantic towards the end of the year. It’s not just the usual fighting for spots in the top quintile; it’s the ever present possibility of impressing the instructors so deeply that they hand over a headband. Trainees from the major clans all work like they’re possessed. Mikoto does as well, stubbornly ignoring the inner voice reminding her that girls are _never_ allowed to graduate early.

“It’s not going to happen this year,” Minato says one day while practicing Shurikenjutsu with Mikoto. “I don’t think a jounin has been by the Academy in months so the fighting must be at least at an impasse. It makes sense since the weather’s been bad, which is always really worse for Suna than it is for us. Plus, I think Konoha benefitted a lot from whatever happened at Whirlpool country.”

“You talk like you’ve been in Hokage-sama’s meetings,” says Mikoto, striking one of his shuriken off course with one of her own.

Minato shrugs, launching a whole set of shuriken.

If there’s anyone who’s going to graduate from the Academy early, it’s Minato. He’s already skipped two years and then rose to the top of their class, never mind he’s surrounded by kids older than him. Their teacher’s eyes practically glow with exited tears whenever he watches Minato master a new jutsu.

Before Minato was added to her group, it was Mikoto who’d been the most promising pre-genin. Mikoto excels at meditation, is blessed with naturally high chakra reserves, and is deadly accurate with shuriken. She doubts that Rakshasha would ever raise a dumb child, so in a way it was fortunate that her mother was killed in action long before she learned to walk. Strategy is never an issue for her either.

Mikoto’s only real struggle had been dealing with a teacher who liked to rant that women were a distraction in the field, though even that only made her more determined to wipe the floor with all the boys she sparred with. Though she's hardly popular, Mikoto liked to think that her stubborn successes helped the other girls in her class deal with their teacher’s complaints about the distracting nature of kunoichi.

Then Minato was escorted into her classroom by Jiraiya himself and Mikoto quickly faded to the background. Their teacher practically fell in love and the other boys in the class no longer cared if a girl was better than they were. Not if she wasn’t the _best_.

Though she’d been discouraged at first, Mikoto soon decided to stop measuring herself against people who were her beneath her skill level and started competing against Minato. Maybe she’d never manage to beat him—probably would never manage to beat him; Minato was scarily smart—but it didn’t take long for Mikoto to realize that beating him wasn’t the point. If nothing else, an unattainable goal would force her to challenge herself and keep her from becoming complacent.

Still, how she became friends with Minato is still a mystery to her.

“Doesn’t it seem weird to you that no one’s saying anything about the people from Whirlpool?” she asks him one day during lunch.

“They’re leaving in the poorest parts of the village,” says Minato. “The crippled ones are begging for food, the ones who could got jobs cleaning up at the restaurants, and most kids can’t start school because their dialect is different from ours. Give it a couple more years and many will be in the Red Lights district.”

“But . . .” Mikoto trails off, hesitant to share her grandmother’s ideas with anyone outside the clan. What Minato's describing doesn’t sound like the kind of assimilation Rakshasha predicted.

“It’s not the kind of thing you would her,” continues Minato, tucking some locks of unruly blond hair behind his ear.

Mikoto’s first urge if to defend herself against some sort of slight—she is definitely observant enough to learn about the refugees; she _has_ been paying attention. The thought that she hadn’t come to the same conclusion as Minato is the only thing that keeps her mouth shut. She slips into silence and Minato doesn’t try to engage her in conversation again.

When she’s walking home that day, Mikoto understands why she’d heard nothing of the Hidden Eddy refugees. Minato is one of Konoha’s many orphans. He survives on the small pension awarded to him because his father had been a chuunin and his mother a genin, a sum that only affords him a small apartment in Konoha’s poorer districts. That’s why he’s privy to the fate of the Eddy refugees and Mikoto isn’t.

That night, she decides she will invite Minato to her house if the opportunity ever arises.

* * *

When Minato suggests that they study for their final exams together, Mikoto agrees on the condition that they do so at her house. She expects Minato to decline since it’s not like he actually needs any help, but he nods with a hesitant smile. Privately, Mikoto is relieved. Sometimes, Minato makes more sense than their textbooks.

Rakshasha barely glances their way when Mikoto tries to introduce Minato, which is probably for the best. Mikoto drags him to her room before her grandmother can make any demands of her. She’s curious to see how exactly Minato studies in case it holds the secret to his uncanny intelligence.

That isn’t the case. Minato does the exact same thing she does, but he retains twice the information even though he spends half the time on it. An hour later, he’s studying by teaching her what he’s already reviewed.

They finish with the theory in a matter of days and after some consideration, Mikoto takes Minato to one on the training grounds in the Uchiha compound. Chances are nobody will care. It’s not like she’s bringing a Hyuuga to the place.

Perhaps because she’s two years older, sparring is where Mikoto shines. She’s still faster than Minato, still better at molding large amounts of chakra. It’s her turn to give him pointers, to tell him about how to improve his stance and how to flick his wrist to hide a shuriken behind another.

In the end, nobody says anything about Minato, probably because he’s still just a little orphan with some promise. Mikoto’s grateful she’s allowed a friend. She’s a peculiar position; all her cousins are either younger or older than her. Everyone else in her class either belongs to another clan or hates her for being a clan brat. The other girls . . . well, Mikoto’s never shown much interest in the kunoichi classes and they sense it. They’ve decided that she thinks she’s too good for them, and Mikoto doesn’t know how to explain that she can’t figure out how to make the muscles of her face twist into a fake smile.

* * *

Mikoto and Minato’s final exam scores are three standard deviations above their class’ average. They look at the sheet with stoic expressions, nod solemnly when their classmates congratulate them, and bow respectfully when their teacher praises their efforts. Then when they’re reasonably sure no one’s watching, they laugh and bump their fists together. That’s not enough to express their excitement so they hug each other tightly, Minato resting his head on Mikoto’s shoulder and giggling like a baby being tickled.

“They’re going to sends us to the last year of training,” Minato says when they break apart, blue eyes shining with happiness. “That’s when we get to start learning basic jutsu!”

Mikoto nods even though she’s not certain that’s going to be the case for her. There’s no getting around their teacher’s disdain. Undoubtedly, she will be discredited since it’s no secret that she prepared for the exams with Minato.

Much to Mikoto’s surprise, Rakshasha seems delighted by her accomplishment. She gets two full days without any shores and orders to bring Minato over for a celebratory dinner. Mikoto’s surprised that Rakshasha even remembers Minato’s name as she nods, feeling stupidly touched by her grandmother’s pride. She hopes that Minato will come. Rakshasha rarely lets anyone in the house and is in fact deeply resentful that her duties as an Elder require her to host near weekly meetings in her humble home.

Minato is surprised when Mikoto invites him to dinner, but he nods quickly and looks away, like something embarrassing has just happened. Mikoto realizes that she has no idea how long it’s been since Minato enjoyed a family meal with anyone. He seems to have no more friends than her—clan brats avoid him out of jealousy and everyone else complains that he’s a know-it-all. Mikoto is suddenly concerned that Rakshasha will take to him the same way she takes to everyone else and worries that he’ll end up banned from her home by the end of the night.

Dinner time arrives and rather amusingly, it only takes Minato half an hour to coax Rakshasha into regaling them with tales of the first Secret War.

“It was a _loooong_ shit show,” she tells them. “The Hyuuga had only just joined us and most of them were so hungry and stupefied that they couldn’t tell a Kumo ninja from their own mother. But we had more soldiers and were fighting in our own Country.”

“How long did it take the Hyuuga to establish themselves in the village?” asks Minato, a question that surprises Mikoto. She’s more interested in learning about Kumo battle tactics.

“About fifteen years,” answers Rakshasha. “They breed like rabbits and Tobirama was convinced that Byakugan would eventually be indispensible. I doubt he realized just how strong that blood line can become, the spirits rest his conniving soul.”

The answer deflates Minato and it bothers Mikoto that she can’t begin to guess why. As far as she knows, Minato has no connections to the Hyuuga.

“Tell us about Lightning Jutsu, Grandmother,” she asks Rakshasha, hoping that talk of chakra and battles will cheer Minato.

Rakshasha tells them of the first time she saw another ninja attuned to Lightning perform nature transformation. It’s a story Mikoto has heard many times but she loves it anyway. Not only does it include the intricacies of Sharingan and nature transformation; it’s also one of the few memories that makes Rakshasha smile.

“I felt deficient before that day,” says Rakshasha. “All my cousins and even my idiot sister were well on their way to mastering Fire, but I couldn’t generate a spark without searing down my bones. Then I saw one of those Kumo bastards pushing chakra into metal, turning it into lightning and directing its flow, and I was a different person.”

It’s a nice night, but all nice things must come to an end. A couple of hours after the sun sets, Rakshasha tells them that she wishes to be alone and starts limping towards her room. Mikoto drags Minato away before Rakshasha can start yelling, glad that she has been given the opportunity to escape one of her Grandmother’s rants. Besides, she wants to ask Minato . . . she doesn’t know what exactly, but she means to find out why he’s been so morose.

“Why did you ask about the Hyuuga?” Mikoto begins after they’ve left the Uchiha compound without saying a word. It visibly startles Minato and for once Mikoto wishes they weren’t so comfortable with silence.

“I was hoping . . .” Minato shakes his head and laughs quietly. “It doesn’t matter.”

Mikoto wants to press for information but it would be rude. She looks up at the stars, questions niggling at her thoughts. Why the Hyuuga? Minato has never cared about the clans before. Also, everyone who asks about the Hyuuga asks about the Cursed Seal. Or the Byakugan.

“I was hoping Eddy refugees might learn something from the Hyuuga,” says Minato after a few minutes. “It was a stupid thought. They have no bloodline limit and they didn’t come to Konoha willingly.”

The people of Uzushio could not have been farther from Mikoto’s mind. She wonders why Minato even cares and decides that he must have met some of them in his district.

“They’re lucky we let them in at all,” she says. Minato has to know that their fate would have been worse in any of the other hidden villages.

“Yes, I suppose so,” he agrees.

They say goodbye shortly afterwards, pleasant as they always do. Nevertheless, Mikoto feels what most people must feel when they try to talk to Minato—like she’s completely failed to grasp what he’d tried to say.

* * *

Mikoto sees very little of Minato during the summer weeks. Neither of them is the kind to laze about and they’re in different school grades. Mikoto greets him the few times she runs into him in the markets, happy that he at least looks healthy. She feels a twinge of sadness every time she remembers that he’ll be placed a year above her in the Academy. It will be lonely for her once again, worse this time since she know knows she rather likes having a friend.

One hot July morning, while the sun is brightening the sky, Mikoto learns that Seiji-sama’s first born son had been unexpectedly killed in action.

“Second time this happens in as many generations,” says Rakshasha, rolling her dark eyes. “At least the spare’s young enough that it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.”

In all honesty, the news doesn’t really affect Mikoto much. She’s only distantly related to the Head family. Her mother had been Seiji-sama’s third cousin and her father some peasant from Water country. If Rakshasha wasn’t an Elder, Mikoto would not have been expected to attend the funeral proper.

She’s happy that she gets to go, insofar as it’s possible to be happy at a funeral of a person she didn’t hate. The other important families make a point to pretend Rakshasha isn’t present—they must still be angry that she convinced Seiji-sama to side with the Hyuuga over the Eddy refugees. Mikoto’s fairly certain that they don’t even have to pretend not to notice she’s there. It doesn’t bother her. In fact, she prefers it that way.

“Such a shame,” a lady is whispering loudly. “Fugaku doesn’t exactly inspire confidence does he?”

“They said the same thing about Seiji-sama and he turned out fine,” says another. “And he even had to take leadership earlier than expected.”

“Not everyone’s happy with Seiji,” adds a man wearing a headband.

Mikoto decides to walk away before anyone notices her. Curious she might be, but she’s also cautios. She has no desire to be caught in the drama of the higher families.

Before she notices it, Mikoto has wandered to the edge of the forest encroaching on Seiji-sama’s home. She takes a moment to enjoy the sight of the summer leaves before remembering that she’s encumbered by a gleaming white kimono and sighs. Rakshasha might not care if her ward ruined her clothes, but Mikoto doesn't want anyone to remember her as the near-grown girl who dirtied her clothes like an infant. She decides to go back to the house, but a sniffling sounds draws her deeper into the forest.

With her fingers hovering over the kunai she hid in the sleeves of her kimono, Mikoto makes her way deeper into the woods. A ninja would hear her, of course. But a ninja would also not make a sound. She finds a boy dressed in white, stares at the back of his head for a few seconds, and the turns around when she realizes who he is.

“Who are you?” he demands, hiccupping.

Mikoto turns around and stares straight at Fugaku Uchiha’s eyes, relieved that she’s far away enough that she can’t see if his eyes are red-rimmed or not. They probably are, but this way they can both pretend otherwise. After some moments of tense silence, Mikoto turns away and starts walking back to the house. She thanks all their common ancestors that Fugaku doesn’t try to stop her or speak to her.

It’s a weakness, especially for men, to be caught sobbing. Even at a brother’s funeral. It’s a little unfair. Mikoto doesn’t pretend that she isn’t going to be reduced to tears when Rakshasha passes away, difficult though her grandmother might be. She understands and hopes that Fugaku, who will one day be Head of the clan, won’t hold a grudge because she caught him in a moment of grief.

* * *

A week before Academy classes begin, Mikoto gets orders to report for the last year of pre-genin training. She stares at the scroll for an entire minute and then runs back into the house to give Rakshasha the news. “I’m graduating early!” she yells then slaps a hand over her mouth, mortified at how loud she’s being.

“The Academy was mostly bullshit from what I remember,” says Rakshasha. Then she glares at Mikoto and waves her away. “You might miss it anyway.”

It’s not surprising that Rakshasha is unconcerned with Mikoto’s schooling, but Mikoto still can’t shake off her excitement. She wants to go back and ask Rakshasha if any other girl has ever graduated the Academy even a measly year earlier—perhaps Lady Tsunade?—but she knows better than to bother her grandmother after she’s been dismissed. Finally, she remembers another person who knows about as much of Konoha’s history as a textbook.

A few minutes later, after she’s already in the village proper, Mikoto stops in her tracks and remembers that she has no idea where exactly Minato lives. She blushes and stares at her toes feeling like the biggest fool in the village, then decides to return home. Perhaps Rakshasha will be more amenable to conversation at dinner.

“Mikoto?”

She beams and whirls around, embarrassingly happy to hear Minato’s voice. His blue eyes widen when he sees her, but he accepts her hug and lays his head on her shoulders. If he wasn’t carrying a bag of groceries, Mikoto begs he’d be hugging her back.

“I did it!” she says. “I won’t have to stay at the Academy for two whole years!”

“Well, no,” says Minato. “You got what, three more questions wrong than me?” They speak under the shade of a maple for a few moments and then Minato suggests they go to his apartment, where he’s got a bunch of books about basic jutsu.

Minato lives between the markets and the Red Lights district, only a couple of street away from the former. Mikoto generally avoids the area because trash litters the streets and barefoot children run from house to house begging for scraps. The people are hollow-eyed and suspicious, and there’s no way they don’t notice the Uchiha fan on the back of Mikoto’s shirt. She suspects that the term “clan brat” and its less polite siblings originated somewhere around there.

“How long have you lived around here?” she asks when they’re at Minato’s door, mostly to make conversation.

“My father died two years ago,” says Minato, reaching for his keys. “A genin’s salary’s not enough for anything nicer . . . my orphan’s allowance is actually more than what my mother used to make.”

Mikoto can’t think of anything to say to that and she doesn’t really have to. Before Minato’s opened his door, one of his neighbors is in the hallway glaring daggers.

“I was waiting for you, you little Leaf holier-than-everyone motherfucker,” a redheaded girl is saying, striding close to Minato with a hateful grimace. She grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls until Minato has to drop his groceries. “What the _fuck_ did you say to Naoki?”

“Kushina . . .” A boy with hunched shoulders and a black eye is staring at the back of the girl’s head with furrowed eyebrows.

“I told him the truth,” says Minato without making a move to defend himself. “He’s never going to get anywhere in life hiding behind your spectacles.”

And that makes the girl raise a fist. Mikoto’s rushing forward, dimly wondering why Minato isn’t doing more to defend himself. She grabs the redhead’s arm and is surprised when she reacts the way an experienced fighter would, immobilizing Mikoto’s wrist and dragging her forward, pulling back her arm to follow up with a punch to her chin. Mikoto begins to duck, plans to strike at the redhead’s flank, and then Minato’s between them. The redhead’s forced to release Mikoto’s wrist and take a step backwards, though not so far away that Mikoto can’t see the challenge in her violet eyes.

“That’s enough!” Minato yells when Mikoto starts bending her knees. “I don’t want the chuunin here again!” he snaps.

Mikoto doesn’t think she’s ever heard him angry before.

“Kushina, please come on,” the tanned boy is suddenly begging, grabbing a hold of the redhead’s hand. “You know we’re going to get it worse than him.”

“Why shouldn’t you?” asks Mikoto. “She’s the one who started this.”

Minato shoots her a pleading look, but Mikoto can’t muster up any embarrassment. The air of victimhood around the redhead and her little friend has her muscles spoiling for a fight.

The redhead chuckles, not unlike the way Rakshasha does when she thinks Mikoto’s said something naïve and stupid. “You keep your advice to yourself from now own,” she tells Minato, “or I’ll make you eat one of your books.”

Minato sighs when the redhead and her friend are back behind their door. He bends down to pick up his groceries and sighs again when he notices Mikoto staring at him. “That’s Kushina Uzumaki,” he tells her as he straightens up. “One of the refugees from Uzushio. We don’t always agree.”

Mikoto nods and holds the door open for him, suddenly understanding his questions about the Hyuuga during their celebratory dinner so many nights prior. Though this Kushina is as aggressive as a rabid dog, it seems like Minato has tried to help her. She hopes it’s for the boy’s sake.


	2. On the Way

The last year of Academy training is tough, mostly because a lot of it will be pretty boring. The chuunin instructor tells them right away that they won’t be learning any complicated jutsu and emphasizes that it’s most important they learn all the rules and regulations Konoha ninja must follow. He reminds them that taijutsu and shurikenjutsu they could practice without much supervision, but most ninjutsu and genjutsu is hard to learn without one-on-one instruction.

“There’s forty-two of you and only one of me,” he finishes. “Work hard this year and you’ll get your own jounin-sensei to teach you ninjutsu.”

Mikoto expected as much so she’s not terribly disappointed. She’s lucky that she’s smart enough to work out many things by herself, and even luckier that she’s got Minato keeping her company and offering insights. They spend the first week or so working together, quickly mastering their lessons and then going on a bit further. A few days into the second week of classes, Minato figures out that Hiashi Hyuuga favors his right foot and Mikoto’s quick enough to exploit it during a spar, which is probably the most impressive thing she’s ever done.

She goes home feeling like a giant, eager to share her accomplishment with Rakshasha during dinner. Though her grandmother is more tolerant of the Hyuuga than most Uchiha, she still enjoys it when they look like fools.

Unfortunately, Rakshasha has other things to talk about.

“I hear you’ve been ignoring Fugaku at school,” she says the moment Mikoto walks through their door.

“. . . No,” denies Mikoto, not bothering to hide her bafflement. “He hasn’t paid _me_ any attention.” Not that Mikoto ever expected him to, so she never even thought to mention it to anyone.

“Well, of course not,” agrees Rakshasha, gesturing Mikoto towards the living room. “He’s the Clan heir. You’re supposed to approach _him_.”

And that’s how Mikoto learns that she’s making Fugaku look weak by “trailing behind some orphan like a lovesick puppy”, which baffles her so much that she doesn’t even interrupt Rakshasha. Minato’s only a child. Mikoto’s only a child. Why would anyone . . . She doesn’t understand.

“I understand that Fugaku’s dull,” Rakshasha finishes, “but some appearances must be observed. Pay lip service to him at school and keep the blond one on the side, if you must.”

Mikoto doesn’t sleep well. Next day she feels dejected as she heads to the Academy for the first time in as long as she can remember, and her belly flips whenever she thinks of Minato. Awkwardly, she walks to Fugaku and her other cousins instead of sitting beside Minato as she’s been doing since he joined her class last year. Her cousins stare her flatly and Mikoto feels her shoulders hunching. She finds that she can’t force an apology past her lips and there’s nothing else to say. Finally, Fugaku gestures at the seat behind him and their cousins have no choice but to move their glaring eyes away from Mikoto.

It’s three days before Minato manages to corner her. “Why are you avoiding me?” he asks, blue eyes wide and shining with something Mikoto tells herself aren’t unshed tears. “What did I do?”

It’s been three days since Mikoto’s been treated like anything other than a pariah. Her cousins don’t speak to her; they descend on her like hawks during practice and refuse to so much as look at her even during group assignments. Rakshasha won’t care if Mikoto dares to complain so she doesn’t. Worst of all, Mikoto’s ashamed and she doesn’t know why. Minato won’t understand. She doesn’t understand.

* * *

The redhead and her friend are in Mikoto’s class at the Academy. He’s as meek as a starving mouse but she’s as loud as a lion cub. One afternoon, the boys are making fun of the boy—Naoki. They remind him that he’s only in class because of the redhead—Tomato (her name is Kushina; Mikoto can’t believe how unimaginative bullies can be). Apparently the redhead refused to attend if little Naoki wasn’t allowed to come with her. The other boys are about to escalate to physical violence before Kushina interrupts them and somehow, by the time she’s done insulting them Kushina’s declared that she’ll become Hokage just to kick them out of their home to see how _they_ like it.

A week later Kushina’s still insisting that she’ll be Hokage, sounding more serious about it every day. Mikoto doesn’t know what to make of it, but she wishes to know if it is true that Hokage-sama allowed Kushina’s friend into the Academy just because she asked. No child in Konoha can boast that kind of influence. Not even Hiashi Hyuuga. Mikoto thinks about it all the time, wishing she had someone to discuss it with. Not for the first time, she misses Minato.

The situation with her cousins isn’t getting any better and Mikoto has to admit that it’s mostly her fault. Fugaku has tried to engage her in conversation but it seems like she’s being cold and argumentative rather than supportive. Or so Hikaru, Sakuya, and Saori insist. Perhaps Mikoto shouldn’t have wiped the floor with Fugaku that one time they were paired for a spar. She’s a year younger after all, and sadly doesn’t own a penis.

When Minato beats someone older than him, it means he’s impressive. When Mikoto beats someone older than her, it makes them pathetic.

The Hyuuga aren’t any better since they’re still bitter that Mikoto managed to beat Hiashi, never mind they ought to be grateful she’s made the bastard aware of a flaw in his footwork. He’s already correcting it, a fact Mikoto’s painfully aware of every time they spar together. She’s beginning to fear for her safety a little, though a part of her is glad everyone is forcing her to become a vicious fighter. It’s not like she can improve by practicing with Minato anymore.

* * *

A month into the year, there’s a silent list ranking all the potential genin.

Minato is first and it’s a good thing he had a birthday since it means everyone is losing to someone who’s at least in the double digits even though he’s yet to hit puberty. It’s not even that he’s that strong or anything. Minato’s just patient, quick, and has an uncanny ability to wear his opponents out though he ought to tire out long before they do.

Second is Mikoto and isn’t _that_ just blowing up in her face? It isn’t a numbers thing that includes teamwork and cooperation and stealth and written exam scores—she’s outright beating the rest of the boys (all older than her) at taijutsu and especially at shurikenjutsu. They’re not going to forgive her anytime soon.

Then comes Hiashi, who’s so much of an asshole that Mikoto’s beginning to hate clan brats even though she is one.

Followed by his twin, the much quieter and unassuming Hizashi. Maybe he’s better than his brother and had the good sense to keep his head down, like Mikoto thinks she should have done sometimes, her pride be damned.

Fifth place goes to Kushina, who would probably be higher in the list if she wasn’t already thirteen. She’s so bored by everything that Mikoto bets she was already a genin in Uzushio.

Finally, after two girls (one younger than him and another a war refugee), a ten year old who looks like he’s eight, and two Hyuuga, comes Fugaku. It’s a mess and Mikoto’s deeply grateful that there are no more clan brats in her class. She suspects the rest of the clans have produced more talented fighters than Fugaku.

* * *

“I think we’re all ready for a friendly competition,” says their instructor sometime during the third month of training. He tells them that he’s hidden a jutsu scroll in Training Area Seven and that whichever of them finds it will be allowed to keep it. “Everything goes except, you know, murder and maiming. This isn’t Water country.”

Because it _isn’t_ Water country, they get kunai dull ass plastic that have been dipped in sticky red oil. Whoever gets a stain in one of the lethal spots—neck, chest, kidneys, liver—loses the game. If the last one standing finds the scroll (no easy task, Training Ground Seven is quite vast) they win.

Mikoto intends to win. She hides even though it won’t look impressive to her classmates. Their teacher, on the other hand, will be gratified that Mikoto's smarter than she is eager.

Late in the afternoon, Kushina from Uzushio finds her. “Little mouse likes to hide!” she says when Mikoto evades a slash from the dull kunai. Small red smudges stain her pale purple shirt. Mikoto supposes they aren’t big enough to count as lethal strikes.

She tries to run away for a few minutes, hoping that their classmates are after Kushina.

Maybe they are but it’s impossible to hide. The loud refugee hunts her like a vengeful hound, jumping from tree to tree with the confidence of people who’ve lived in Konoha their whole lives.

“It’s just you left!” Kushina cries after a short burst of speed that lands her right in front of Mikoto. “So stay and fight.”

It’s as hard as fighting Hiashi even though Kushina doesn’t possess half his grace or speed. Her defenses are almost as flawless and her eyes don’t dim with exhaustion even though she must have been fighting all day. Mikoto keeps trying to overwhelm her, using all the tricks Rakshasha speaks of when she’s in a good mood—pace yourself, pray your opponent is stupid, try to look bored, it’s about winning not looking impressive—but Kushina seems frighteningly patient, unafraid that she’ll maybe tire out before Mikoto. That needs to change.

“I bet your mother cried like a dog when Mist invaded your shithole of a village,” says Mikoto.

It makes Kushina pause but something in her purple eyes freezes Mikoto before she can take advantage of the opening.

The redhead laughs, quiet and humorless. “I’m not surprised you’d bring that up over some stupid Academy competition,” she says, licking her lips. “So eager to prove something, aren’t you? How long did it take you to lose the bookworm after you got what you needed from him?”

And Mikoto’s leaping at her before she can think better of it, blindly going for her throat. Kushina dodges, counters with a strike at Mikoto’s ribs. Mikoto manages to sidestep but then Kushina’s grabbing her arm and slamming her against the nearest tree trunk. She feels the spike of pain, pushes it away and gets ready to stand—

—she feels cool, dull metal at the base of her skull.

Mikoto sighs as she stares down at the grass, her forehead pounding and her breath as short as if she’d been running for hours. “Maybe Leaf ninja cry like dogs in the face of death,” Kushina says, “but we wouldn’t and we didn’t.”

* * *

“Hopefully, that taught you something,” Rakshasha says, gesturing at Mikoto’s forehead bruise.

It taught her that she doesn’t have the kind of control in her emotions that she assumed she did.

Mikoto tosses and turns that night, chasing sleep like a fox starving in winter would chase a rabbit. When it finally comes, it brings with it memories of Minato’s betrayed gaze.

As she walks towards the Academy the following day, Mikoto decides that she owes her friend an explanation.

“Fugaku says you can’t talk to me?” asks Minato when Mikoto approaches him as he makes his way towards their classroom.

“No,” admits Mikoto, looking away from his skeptical gaze. “But people were . . . saying things.”

“People will always say things,” says Minato. “I didn’t think you were the kind to listen.”

“You don’t understand,” snaps Mikoto.

“I understand most things—”

“—but not _this!_ ” interrupts Mikoto. She feels like she might cry and hates herself and Minato for it. “You’re not . . . you don’t have . . .”

“I guess not,” says Minato before walking away.

It takes Mikoto more than she thought she had to force herself to follow him.

* * *

Days go by in a haze. Mikoto goes through the motions, making sure to keep her mouth shut as much as possible. She feels people’s eyes on her and burrows into her own thoughts with more determination, determined to defeat them all with her silence. Even their teacher notices the change and asks to speak with her one afternoon after a lesson on how to fake affection for a person.

“There’s more to being a ninja than aiming shuriken,” he tells her, “especially for girls. I can’t fail you for not being able to fake a smile convincingly, but you won’t last long in the field unless you work out how to do it.”

That night, Mikoto stares at the mirror in her bathroom and forces her lips to stretch into a smile. Her muscles look as grotesque as she feels. It looks like she has no choice but to become as deadly as a firestorm.

* * *

It’s a miracle it takes Mikoto as long as it does to snap. They’re practicing taijutsu and she’s been paired with Fugaku. His speed is nothing to write home about and his footwork is downright sloppy. Mikoto’s in no mood to coddle him, so he’s landing in the mat with a dull kunai pressed to his throat every few dozen seconds. Hikaru, Sakuya, and Saori are glaring daggers as everyone else snickers but Mikoto doesn’t care. She should, but she doesn’t.

Her cousins corner her on the way home, twist her arm against the small of her back and slam her front against a tree trunk. Flakes of bark dig into the skin of her forehead and her shoulder aches sluggishly. One wrong move it will snap clean out of its socket. “Want to make yourself look better than your family, you little bitch?” Hikaru whispers into her ear.

The smart thing to do would be . . . she doesn’t know, so she decides the best defense is a good offense. “Only looked better than Fugaku.”

“We all need our heir to look strong!”

“And he needs to learn how to not die,” argues Mikoto.

Hikaru puts more pressure on her arm and Mikoto knows she’s about to get really hurt. Through a sudden stab of fear, she knows it better be on her own terms. She twists until she’s out of Hikaru’s grip, quick as a rabbit so she has no time to listen to her shoulder’s sudden scream of pain. Sakuya waiting with a punch to her nose, forcing Mikoto to block with her left arm. Her right arm dangles in pain as she tries to side step their attacks and soon, Mikoto’s back is against the tree bark. Hikaru, Sakuya, and Saori are staring at her, smirks marring their features. Saori cracks her knuckles like the villain in a cheap movie.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” yells a voice from behind them. Fugaku slips between Hikaru and Saori, dark eyes wide and a little anxious. For the first time, Mikoto notices two small birthmarks underlining his eyes.

“Just teaching little Mikoto the importance of familial solidarity,” says Hikaru when Fugaku moves to stand beside Mikoto.

“Leave,” orders Fugaku, voice as firm as Seiji-sama’s when he’s giving out an order he knows everyone will hate.

Sakuya and Saori look uncertain, but Hikaru doesn’t move. In fact, his eyebrows are furrowed into a slight frown, like he’s trying to solve a particularly tricky math problem. Unbidden, an image of the Uchiha family tree flits through Mikoto’s mind. Seiji-sama only had two children. If something were to happen to Fugaku, then Atsuhiko—Hikaru’s father—would become the new Head of the Uchiha clan.

“It isn’t going to work,” says Mikoto in a rush, lessons about how to snap a dislocated shoulder back into place being chanted in her mind in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Minato’s. “We all left the Academy in one piece and we’re halfway back home. The clan will accept someone weak before they accept a traitor.”

Hikaru grimaces and bunches his hands into fists. For a second Mikoto’s sure that she went too far, then Hikaru visibly composes himself and offers a mocking bow. He gestures at Sakuya and Saori and some moments later, all three of them are down the street walking and chatting like none of them had considered murder just a few seconds prior.

Mikoto lets out a shaking breath leans her back against the tree trunk. Her head is pounding almost as much as her shoulder.

“Do you need help with that?” asks Fugaku, gesturing at her shoulder when Mikoto opens her eyes.

The injury is evidence of what happened. Mikoto knows she has to say something—thank Amaterasu her grandmother’s an Elder—and there’s no way the Clan will just take her word for it . . . but she has no proof that it was Hikaru who hurt her, much less that he’d planned to do anything more serious. Even if Fugaku backs her story . . . nothing actually _happened_. No. Fugaku will look like a cowering child if he complains so he won’t speak of the incident. It’ll be a waste of time to even ask about what he plans to do.

“Mikoto?”

No point to have her right arm useless if the injury wasn’t going to prove anything. Mikoto nods and Fugaku gingerly takes a hold of her right arm. Resetting a dislocated joint will be accompanied by a short burst of sharp pain, but it will be worst if she does nothing about i—a wave slams against her mind and next thing she knows, Fugaku’s staring down at her, his dark eyes as big as saucers and his skin pale. Her shoulder aches, but she can shrug without much effort.

“Are you all right?” asks Fugaku while she straightens and begins to raise and rotate her arm. “Mikoto?”

“Leave me _alone_!” she snaps when he reaches for her shoulder, running off to the forest before he can try and stop her.

She can’t believe she passed out. She’s made an enemy of someone who might one day be in charge of her family and she can’t even handle a measly bone being put back in place. What is she going to _do_?

* * *

Mikoto doesn’t tell Rakshasha about the incident because she doesn’t think there’s anything her grandmother can do. Elder or not, she’s not particularly popular and even if she were, Elders are only for counsel and funerals. There’s no point in worrying in her when all she’ll be able to do is advice Mikoto to keep her eyes open.

She’s surprised when things at the Academy get better, at least in one regard. Spending most of her time with cousins who hate her is easier when she has an ally. Fugaku begins listening to her opinion during their assignments and he even tells Hikaru to stop being immature when he makes snide comments about Mikoto’s supposedly glory-chasing antics. Mikoto decides it’s permission to really defend herself and stops holding back whenever she’s assigned to spar with her cousins.

Her only real rival is Hiashi (Minato’s in a class of his own). The spars with him are exhilarating even though she still loses most of them. If she ever awakens Sharingan, she bets she’ll be even better than he is.

A few weeks pass more or less uneventfully. Mikoto has almost let her guard down when Hikaru finally has enough.

They’re being taught how to fight after they’ve been knocked off their feet and Mikoto’s paired with Hikaru. The objective is to not allow their opponent to get back to their up and, if possible, land a lethal blow.

“The truth is most of you won’t be shocking the world with your ninjutsu or taijutsu,” says their teacher. “At least half of you won’t even make it to chuunin and even less will ever fight a jounin. Most of your fights will be decided on the ground.”

Mikoto spends half an hour wriggling away from Hikaru like she’s a snake covered in oil. His superior size means nothing when he has so little room to maneuver and there’s no doubt that Mikoto’s more flexible than him. She’s straddling his belly and pressing a dull kunai to his neck for the eight time when Hikaru throws caution and pride to the wind and actually _spits_ on her.

Mikoto’s so dumbstruck that she doesn’t struggle when he pushes her off and rises to his feet. She wipes her face, cringing in disgust and hoping that no one will notice anything beyond Hikaru suddenly getting up.

“What the hell’s happening over there?” yells their instructor.

“You little _whore_ ,” Hikaru spits and for some reason it stings Mikoto worse than the literal spit.

Only she heard the insult and no one saw. Their teacher reprimands them and then they go back to their assignment, Mikoto fueled by newfound anger. She makes sure to accidentally knee Hikaru in the groin, remembering Rakshasha’s quips about how men would rather lose all limbs rather than their dicks. She gets into trouble for it but it doesn’t matter. Hikaru needs to learn that she’s not intimidated by him.

Though she’s been walking back home with Fugaku since The Incident, Mikoto’s still tense and half expecting Hikaru to descend on them like a wounded vulture.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone that you found me crying?” Fugaku asks suddenly, snapping Mikoto out of her paranoia.

“. . . I forgot about it,” admits Mikoto, surprised that it’s actually the truth. “I wouldn’t say anything anyway.”

Fugaku’s eyes widen and maybe he would’ve said more but they both suddenly hear someone approaching them. Mikoto’s on guard instantly, though she relaxes a bit when she spots a blond head of hair running towards them. She doubts that Minato’s interested in picking a physical fight but they still haven’t spoken in quite a while and the last time they did was rather . . . unpleasant.

“Hey,” says Minato when he reaches them, blue eyes sliding from Fugaku to her. “I was wondering if I could speak with you.”

“. . . I’ll see you tomorrow,” says Fugaku, beginning to turn away.

“No,” says Mikoto, then she bites her lower lip. She doesn’t want to refuse Minato but since Hikaru’s probably fuming, she doesn’t want Fugaku to wonder off on his own.

“That’s fine,” says Minato, nodding to himself before looking straight at Mikoto. “I just wanted to tell you that maybe there are some things I don’t understand as well as I thought.”

Before Mikoto can respond, he waves goodbye and goes off the way he came. She stares at his back and thinks, remembers that Minato had been sparring with Kushina right next to her and Hikaru. “Come on,” she tells Fugaku, gesturing at the road leading home.

* * *

That night, Rakshasha starts complaining about the ligaments missing from her right foot and Mikoto knows the weather’s finally getting colder. She starts scheduling her some extra time to launder their blankets when someone rings their door. Rakshasha isn’t expecting any company so Mikoto goes to answer praying that no one’s dead.

It’s Fugaku.

Mikoto’s flustered at first, uncertain if there’s something she’s supposed to do when the Clan heir shows up at her door, but Rakshasha looks unconcerned. By the time she’s excused herself, muttering something about needing extra meditation time, Mikoto’s confident there’s nothing really special about having Fugaku in the house. She’s still curious though.

“Why did you come?” she asks Fugaku, noting that he’s trying his best not to stand too close to the candles. It’s not right for someone who means to lead a large family and a police force to like the shadows so much, though it is a good trait for a ninja.

“I wanted to talk to you,” says Fugaku.

“About?”

“I . . .” Fugaku fidgets a little then forces himself to look Mikoto in the eye. “My brother was smart, charismatic, and strong. He had no choice but to be that way since he was groomed to lead the family from birth. I was groomed to be his right hand man. My training was not focused on any particular area because Father thought it would be . . . unseemly if the second son surpassed the first in any way. Most of the time, I wasn’t allowed to talk unless I was spoken to first.”

Mikoto thinks that’s a stupid way to raise a right hand man, but she keeps the thought to herself since there’s no guarantee Fugaku won’t bolt if interrupted.

“And now he’s dead and everyone . . .” Fugaku shrugs and smiles sadly. “They don’t expect me to be like him. They just tolerate me but a leader needs more than just tolerance.”

“Why tell me about it?” asks Mikoto.

“I need help,” says Fugaku, shrugging again.

“I’m an orphan,” Mikoto reminds him. “My father was a peasant from Water country.”

“I know that,” says Fugaku. “But you’re still an Uchiha, smart, and I’m pretty sure Hikaru’s scared of you.”

Mikoto can’t hold back a smile. If she becomes the kind of ninja she wants to be, there’s no way she’ll retain the kind of anonymity Elder Rakshasha's quiet granddaughter did. She might as well have the head of the Uchiha clan firmly on her side.

“I’ll help you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a pretty big exam coming up and I wrote this during studying breaks. It's probably all disjointed but I decided to post it so I can stop using it as an excuse not to work.


	3. Halfway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm insomniac as hell tonight, so I wrote this. There are probably more mistakes than usual.

Having Fugaku firmly on her side makes The Academy easier to deal with. Hikaru, Sakuya, and Saori are still out to get them, of course, but none of them will dare actually try anything outside the compound. First and foremost, the Uchiha must present a united front to the outside world. As long as she and Fugaku stick together, they don’t have to worry over much about them. Mikoto is still stronger than Hikaru. Best of all, Fugaku listen to Mikoto when she says they ought to befriend Minato.

“He’s smart,” she argues to her cousins, “and obviously destined for great things. Hiashi and his brother are already cozying up to him.”

She asks Minato to join them during lunch break right away and after a few moments of awkwardness, Minato’s happily lecturing them about tactics. Mikoto can tell Hikaru’s annoyed but the important thing is that Fugaku listens intently, more concerned with absorbing information regardless of where it’s coming from rather than with looking good. Mikoto’s convinced despite having less raw talent than Hikaru, he has the potential to be a much better leader. She tells him so one day as they’re heading home, but instead of making Fugaku happy, it stops him right in his tracks.

“Why?” he asks, angrier than she’s ever heard him. “Why would you think that? Hikaru can and probably will mature, but no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be as strong as him, as fast as you, as gifted as Hiashi Hyuuga, or even as smart as Minato.”

“I already said I’m on your side so you don’t need to be better than me,” says Mikoto. “Minato’s my friend so you don’t have to worry about him either, and who even cares about Hiashi? Once we’re done with the Academy, you’ll have to argue with him at Council meetings, not beat him at taijutsu. As for Hikaru . . .” Mikoto regards Fugaku for a moment, trying to think of what Rakshasha would say. “We’ll just have to make sure he _doesn’t_ mature.”

Though her speech is voiced with conviction, the truth is Mikoto’s not really sure how they’re going to deal with Hikaru. She thinks about it all night, comes up with nothing concrete, and finally decides to enlist Minato’s help. Not about Hikaru, of course. She wouldn’t dare to air her family’s dirty laundry to an outsider. Not even Minato. But it’d be no trouble to ask him for help with Fugaku’s training. It’s not a secret that Fugaku’s nowhere near the level of a clan heir.

* * *

“You do realize you’re putting too much weight on your left side?” is the first thing Minato asks when Mikoto asks him to help Fugaku. “No? Well, you are. It’s a problem. All your opponents realize it and just focus on your right side.”

Mikoto certainly didn’t realize anything of the sort, but she admits that all her winning blows against Fugaku had landed somewhere in the right side of his body. Maybe that was what made Minato special; he consciously realized what other people only grasped instinctively, if they grasped it at all. That and his ability to teach things to anyone willing to listen.

Mikoto hopes she isn’t wrong about Fugaku; that he _is_ willing to listen.

In an easier world, a few lessons with Minato would’ve turned Fugaku into a start. Nothing of the sort happens. A week later Fugaku is still clumsier than he should be, except now they a ten year old orphan is ordering him around like an exalted elder.

“Well,” says Minato after another week has passed, “your balance has improved. Now about your chakra . . .”

Mikoto’s can’t even voice her impatience. She still has no real plan to deal with Hikaru and the bastard gets more daring with every passing day. Last time he had to spar with Fugaku, he had the nerve to actually beat him, clan solidarity be damned. Though it’d taken him a while, so maybe Fugaku was improving much faster than she and Minato were giving him credit for.

Finally, Mikoto decides she needs Rakshasha’s advice. Obviously, she can’t just walk up to her and ask for help devising a plan tocut Hikaru down a few pegs—as an Elder, Rakshasha is meant to be an impartial fountain of harmony and wisdom and downright incapable to siding with any clan member over the other—but she can ask her grandmother for her ideas about a hypothetical situation. Ideally, she could make the issue into some kind of meaningless thought exercise.

Mikoto waits for one of the nights Rakshasha imbibes something alcoholic; for a night where she smiles softly and doesn’t complain about her foot or the weather. She cooks Rakshasha’s favorite dinner (sashimi with wasabi on the side) and makes sure to keep the sake within reach (although diluted so Rakshasha won’t pass out on her too early). She even volunteers to arrange Rakshasha’s grey hair into a ornate braid, weaving purple beads though the few locks that are still black as star-less night sky.

“Grandma,” she says when Rakshasha compliments her for being a dutiful granddaughter, “we’ve been learning sabotage techniques at the Academy. How would you go about hurting someone if they can’t know you’re the reason they’re hurt?”

“Physical, social, or psychological pain?” asks Rakshasha, taking a sip of sake.

“Any of those,” answers Mikoto. “All of those, preferably.”

“And what’s this person like?”

“Arrogant, ambitious, and woefully overestimating their own abilities,” answers Mikoto. “But they have important parents and if I wait until they’re older, they might get less stupid.”

“During the war,” starts Rakshasha and Mikoto doesn’t bother to ask which one because it doesn’t really matter, “kunoichi infiltrated enemy camps impersonating maids and whores. We’d locate the two proudest men in the group and started rumors that each said something insulting about the other. Some disparaging comment about dicks was usually enough. Best case scenario, they killed each other and left the unit in complete disarray.”

* * *

Well, the two most arrogant men in Mikoto’s class are Hiashi and Hikaru but it’d be a little too obvious if she tried to instigate a fight between them. Uchiha—and Hyuuga, she bet—had strict orders not to fight each other, at least not openly. Besides, they both already talked gossiped about each other constantly. Another rumor would go unnoticed.

She needed something big; to goad Hikaru into the kind of misstep that would either bring his loyalty to the Uchiha into question (Mikoto discarded this instantly during all her brainstorming because she wasn’t a magician) or to make him look so unstable that he’d never be trusted as anything more than a chuunin.

How? How? _How?_

The answer comes to her one sunny afternoon during taijutsu practice, when Hikaru is paired with Kushina and it ends with her spitting in his face and promising to bury him in clerical duty when she becomes Hokage. Their teacher has to pry her off him and kick her out of the class for the day, shouting that no ninja would make such a spectacle of herself. Kushina stalks away with a vicious glare and for some reason it makes Mikoto notes that she’s had one of the growth spurts children their age are prone to.

Her red hair is longer than ever, almost blond where the sunlight hits it. She’s taller than all the boys in the class except for the Hyuuga twins and her face has gotten thinner and longer. Her clothes are looser than they use to be, not form fitting, especially not over her belly. Her breasts have gotten too big. Suddenly, Mikoto knows what she needs to do.

It makes her uneasy.

That night she dreams that cousin Mikiao dyes her hair flaming red and then starts drunkenly yelling about clothes that don’t fit instead of all the missions she completed before ghosts and Hyuuga conspired to get her kicked out of ANBU. It’s a stupid dream. Mikiao doesn’t have anything to do with anything anymore.

Mikiao is one of Rakshasha’s many grandchildren and Mikoto’s first cousin. She was a great ninja, jounin by seventeen and on the fast track to becoming one of the few female ANBU captains in the village. Mikoto’s almost fifteen years younger, but she thinks she remembers a bright eyed girl swinging her around and teaching her how to properly aim shuriken. Sometimes, when Mikiao visits Rakshasha to beg for money, Mikoto feels like those memories are lies.

Like all women of the Uchiha clan—of any clan—Mikiao was supposed to have a child. How else could the clan continue to exist? Rakshasha advised her to get it done before accepting a promotion to captain or else the Elders would be on her case about wasting a perfectly good Uchiha womb. Mikiao still swears she tried sometimes, that she must have tumbled every healthy man in Fire country, but that all the seed was dead. Her moon cycle went on and on as if she was a devoted widow and no baby ever planted in her womb.

No one believes her. They say she is selfish, that she likes her freedom too much, or that she’s too afraid of pain to have one measly kid. It makes Mikoto’s stomach clench but it’s hard to deny it when she looks at Mikiao’s narrowed eyes during Rakshasha’s rants about what drugs will do to her.

It’s dumb and irrelevant to think about things that are so beyond her—Mikoto doesn’t even have a moon cycle yet—so she pushes them out of her mind and focuses on the plan.

* * *

Henge is actually quite a simple technique and Mikoto doesn’t understand why anyone would have trouble with it. She’s glad they do, though. It’s the only hope of working her plan has. She puts on a plain girl that looks like no one—brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin, black pants and white shirt—and wonders to one of Konoha’s parks one sunny weekend, determined to worm her way into a quick game of tag with some of the girls in her class.

They don’t question her when she says she’s a year younger, eagerly waiting for her turn at the last year of Academy training. She waits until after she loses the game, steels herself and uses her savings to buy Caeda and Rio candy from one of the most expensive stores in the village, and listens carefully for the moment they start gossiping about their classmates. She’s been told gossip is all girls do.

But first they talked about money.

Then family; Caeda had none but Rio’s parents are dishwashers at the Red Lights district and she’s desperate to become a chuunin so her father can stop working since his arthritis is driving him to silent tears almost every night.

It turns out they both like the same daytime drama so Mikoto is forced to listen to a detailed account of one mysterious jounin called Sasuke trying to rescue a princess from some anonymous group of rogue ninja. She promises to watch at the earliest opportunity and then shyly asks them what the last year at the Academy is like.

“Hard,” Caeda says, shrugging. She pushes some strands of dark hair behind her ear, sighs and then looks up at the darkening sky with furrowed eyebrows. Rio lays her head on Caeda’s shoulder and also sighs.

“Um,” says Mikoto, “and your classmates?”

“Clan brats,” says Caeda, shrugging again.

Mikoto tries to think of something to say that will prompt more of a conversation. They need to mention Kushina, at the very least. If she just randomly says what she needs to say, they’ll get suspicious and then what would she do? Beat them unconscious? “Are the clan brats very good?” she finally asks.

“Mikoto’s pretty impressive,” says Rio, smiling brightly. “I think I got a little gay crush that time she beat Hiashi—the Hyuuga heir,” she adds in Mikoto’s direction with a smile.

And Mikoto has no trouble smiling back.

“The Hyuuga twins are pretty good too,” says Caeda. “And really pretty. I’d kill for a wig made of their hair.” She runs a hand through her own, which is styled in what Mikoto’s heard described as a pixie cut.

“And there’s Minato,” adds Rio, “who’s not a clan brat but he’s so creepy smart he might as well be. But he’s so sweet you can’t even hate him for it.”

Mikoto smiles at that too because it’s the truest thing she’s heard all day.

And so Caeda and Rio go, naming their classmates and their most prominent quality. Mikoto’s happily surprised that all their assessments are fair, if not exactly positive. She’s heard so many times and from so many people that all girls do is tear people down when they’re not around to defend themselves. It would be nice, she decides, if Caeda and Rio could be her friends.

“Who else . . .” mumbles Rio after making a crack about the exaggerated way Saori moved her “little boy hips” when she walked.

“There’s Kushina,” says Caeda. Mikoto has to bite her lip. It’s still not the right time to say what she needs to say.

“Her . . .” breathes Rio, sighing nervously. “She’s really creepy. Looks like a rabid dog sometimes. I hate sparring with her.”

“. . . Red hair?” Mikoto tries in a low voice, scared that it might be pushing too far.

“Gorgeous red hair,” says Caeda. “Shame she doesn’t do anything with it.”

“I heard one of the clan brats talking about a redhead,” starts Mikoto, continuing when Caeda and Rio regard her with expectant curiosity, “she was trying to entrap one of the Uchiha clansmen; wants to have a secure place in Konoha as soon as possible.”

“Kushina?” says Caeda, shaking her head firmly. “No way. She’d probably castrate a Konoha clan brat before she fucked one of them. Just no.”

“Who would even say that?” demands Rio.

“No need to even ask,” says Caeda before Mikoto can start hinting vaguely towards Hikaru. “The non-heir Uchiha, probably. He’s convinced everyone wants some of his Sharingan spunk but most of us would rather go for one of his elders.”

It goes well. Better than Mikoto expected, actually. She still feels queasy as she heads home, like there’s foul water in her belly. Maybe expensive ice cream doesn’t suit her.

* * *

Mikoto hopes she won’t have to spend too much time spreading rumors. It eats into her training schedule, for one, and she also finds it distasteful to approach people with false pretenses. That same weekend she also transforms into an anonymous boy, joins some male classmates at another park, and idly makes a joke or two about Hikaru’s manliness.She says Kushina has been laughing because she felt that Hikaru’s balls are about the size of pellets during a spar. Mikoto has actually kneed Hikaru in the groin and doesn’t have any estimation one way or the other; it was quick and there was too much cloth on the way. But the boys laugh anyway.

In the spirit of subtlety, Mikoto decides she won’t do more for at least a week. The whole plan will fall apart if her involvement becomes obvious, anyway. Besides, final Academy exams are looming and she needs to discuss preparation with Minato.

Mikoto doesn’t know why Fugaku has started dragging Hikaru and his girlfriends into games of Go during lunch but she’s glad he has. It gives her a chance to have lunch with Minato more or less privately and it’s one of the few times she gets to be just Mikoto lately. At home she’s of Mikoto the granddaughter and almost everywhere else, she’s Mikoto the Uchiha clanswoman. Fugaku can be as accommodating—and sometimes as deferential—as he wants; Mikoto can’t forget that he will be Head of the Clan one day, at least if she has anything to do with it.

“I wish the genin teams weren’t organized the way they are,” she says one day while they enjoy lunch during a sunny day. It’s not too hot, the temperature’s perfect actually, which is why their teacher took the entire class to enjoy a meal at Training Area Seven. “I’m going to get stuck with idiots.” There’s certainly no possibility of being in the same team as Minato, anyway. “Unless . . .”

“Hm?” mumbles Minato, glancing her way from behind overlong blond bangs.

 _Boys_ are assigned into teams according to their skill levels—most skilled paired with least skilled—but as far as Mikoto knows, a random kunoichi is assigned to each squad. It’s not an official policy, of course, but all the speculation in their class is about which boys will be paired together. There aren’t enough girls to get too picky about anyway, though there will be at least one team in their year with two girls in it if everyone passes the exam. Especially because both the Hyuuga and the Uchiha have announced that their heir won’t join the regular corps—the Hyuuga have Hizashi to spare and Seiji-sama needs to emergency-groom Fugaku into a clan head.

“You’ll be in the same team as Naoki, assuming he passes,” she tells Minato. Top of the class is always in the same team as bottom of the class.

“Looks that way,” agrees Minato. He doesn’t look happy about and Mikoto wonders if that has anything to do with Kushina, who follows Naoki around like a guard dog.

“What about everyone else?” asks Mikoto. “Come on,” she insists when he raises an eyebrow at her. “You have a prediction for everything.”

Minato offers her a sheepish grin and leans closer, like he plans to share a secret. “I think they’re going to put Caeda on my team ‘cause Kushina doesn’t _completely_ hate her.”

Makes sense. “And me?”

Minato leans back and glances towards the trunk of a large pear tree where the Hyuuga twins are napping.

“Hizashi?” she asks, baffled. “We’re both in the top five . . . and he’s a Hyuuga.” Uchiha and Hyuuga just aren’t placed in the same team.

“That’s why!” says Minato, fidgety as he always gets when he’s trying to explain some cool thing he’s figured out all by himself. “You’re both mature and respectful so you won’t start dumb fights with each other. And he’s Hiashi’s _twin_ and you’ve been getting close to Fugaku so if you two become true friends, you might talk the future clan heads of the Uchiha and Hyuuga to stop being—well, you know!”

Talk the future clan heads into not being immature dumbasses about each other, he means. The more Minato talks, the more sense he makes. It’s usually how it goes.

* * *

Mikoto’s about to reassess her anti-Hikaru strategy when the little rumor seeds she planted bear fruit.

Their class is in the middle of another group exercise—two teams faking an inter-village conflict about a stolen scroll—and Mikoto’s team (the one supposed to protect the scroll) is winning. Which she’s really proud about because Minato’s in the other team . . . though so is Kushina, undoubtedly trying to walk all over him. She seems to find some sort of perverse pride in been in the only person who refuses to fall in line for Minato’s charms.

Mikoto’s plan is brilliant in its simplicity—give all the members of her team identical scroll and tell no one who has the real thing in case one of them is captured. As long as they scatter, they should be able to keep the scroll until sundown.

One of the Hyuuga twins is following her and Mikoto doesn’t want to risk fighting Hiashi so she heads towards the Uchiha compound, praying that good old Uchiha-Hyuuga animosity will keep whichever’s following her away.

After a sudden turn she hopes will disorient the twin, Mikoto runs into Sakuya’s prone form.

Her first thought it’s of a trap, of course but when the Hyuuga catches up to her, he stares down at Sakuya’s body and approaches very cautiously without trying to inch into Mikoto’s personal space. “She’s alive,” he says, then waits for her to make a decision. It’s probably Hizashi then.

A pained shout pierces the air before Mikoto can even start thinking about what to do. It’s Hikaru’s voice. Something—misplaced loyalty?—prompts Mikoto to rush towards the sound and she’s vaguely surprised that maybe-Hizashi follows her. She spares an involuntary thought about the fake scroll and then she’s making another turn and looking at the back of a head of red hair.

Kushina’s straddling Hikaru’s hips and has his right arm twisted over his head in a way that’ll rip it right of its socket if he tries to lift his chest off the ground. With her right arm, Kushina’s pounding fist after fist right into his face.

Mikoto’s on her though a voice in her head suggests it’s better than what she planned. She grabs Kushina’s left arm and begins to twist it into a basic hold. Kushina moves off Hikaru like lightning and Mikoto doesn’t quite manage to dodge the fist striking at her nose. There’s a burst of pain and then a hot fluid leaking out of her nostrils. She crouches and begins sidestep. An instant later Kushina’s shoulder sags and she whirls around with a snarl.

Mikoto slides away from her and lets her gaze flit to Hizashi, who’s adopted a defensive Gentle Fist stance. She has no time to check if her nose is broken.

“Calm down,” says Hizashi.

Kushina shrugs her shoulder and smirks. Hizashi’s eyes widen and Mikoto’s heart skips a beat. No way some Uzushio genin can recover from a Gentle Fist strike that quickly. No way.

“You’ve fractured the floor of his eye-socket and dislocated his jaw,” Hiazashi says.

“I’m going to do more than that,” says Kushina.

“And what of all the people who died to get you here?” asks Hizashi. “You’re going to throw away your chance and their sacrifice over a petty school fight?”

Kushina’s muscles tense. Mikoto prepares to attack, to back up Hizashi if necessary, but Kushina deflates before their eyes. She sniffles, sobs, and then she’s running away graceless as baby deer.


	4. Beginning

“Sometimes, there’s no satisfaction in getting what you want,” Rakshasha says when they get home from Kushina’s hearing. “Nothing to say?” Rakashasha continues when Mikoto doesn’t answer. “Either way, Hikaru won’t be a problem anymore. All that _Bijuu_ chakra turned what little brains he had to mush.”

Rakshasha only knows who started it because Mikoto confessed it to her in a hushed voice as they walked home, breath hitching when she got to the part about Hikaru’s attacks against her. “I didn’t know,” Mikoto tries.

“Bah!” interrupts Rakshasha, waving a hand dismissively. “There’s no way to prove who instigated all this so enjoy it. You’re not the one who’ll have to deal with the whining from the old farts. As if the Third can afford to lose Kyuubi over some pre-genin spat.”

 _They wouldn’t be wrong,_ Mikoto thinks but doesn’t say. She hates Hikaru, sure, but it’s still insulting that Hokage-sama responded to Atsuhiko’s complaints with nothing more than a slap on the wrist against Kushina. Especially since she didn’t even pretend to be sorry. Especially with the Hyuuga nosing about.

“Can I be excused?”

“You can excuse yourself after you’ve drawn me a hot bath,” says Rakshasha.

As it turns out, the chore helps Mikoto’s mind clear. By the time she’s done, her belly is not quite as tight as it was at the end of the trial and her lungs don’t freeze every time she remembers that she must return to the Academy for the last week of classes and a final exam.

* * *

Minato’s worked out that Mikoto had something to do with Kushina and Hikaru’s fight before he meets her after classes the very next day. “I’d have thought of something less . . . _insane_ if you’d just _asked_  me for help!” he snaps when Mikoto explains what she did. His hiss is loud enough to be heard over the rustling of leaves on a windy day.

“You’re not to get involved in my clan’s business!” Mikoto says.

“But it’s fine if _Kushina_ does?” demands Minato.

 _Kushina didn’t get involved; I_ used _her_ , Mikoto almost snarls but that’s just guilt noise unfit for a ninja and besides, it isn’t anything Minato hasn’t already reasoned out. “Since when do you care about her?”

“I . . .” Minato falters and looks past her shoulder. “That’s not the point. What if anyone realizes you had something to do with this? You’ll be in a world of trouble with your family _and_ the village. Why didn't you come to me?”

“You’re the only who put two and two together and only because you’re a genius and we’re friends,” says Mikoto. “Let’s just go before someone overhears us.”

Minato’s mouth is half open when Mikoto just grabs his arm and drags him back towards the road. Considering the weekend mess, she’s not thrilled about leaving Fugaku alone in the village though there’s not much she’d be able to do if . . . no. No one in her clan would ever dare make a move against Seiji-sama's heir in the middle of the village. If nothing else, it’d make the Uchiha look like squabbling roosters and no one in the clan wants that.

That night, Mikoto goes over her short argument with Minato, an uneasy mouse niggling the back of her thoughts. No argument with Minato should be so easy to win. What did she say that made him shut up and spend the day in a sulky cloud of silence?

_Since when do you care about her?_

Well, for a while. Since the Eddy refugees arrived probably. Minato even asked Rakshasha about how a large group of people could be integrated into the village. Though maybe he didn’t care about Kushina specifically. Minato also kept making efforts to help Naoki despite Kushina’s never-ending threats but . . . that didn’t clarify much. Either way, Mikoto couldn’t say she understood why he spent so much time caring about either of them.

* * *

The last week of classes is brutal. Their teacher is determined to get all of them to pass though he does make some rather ominous comments about not being responsible if they’re all too stupid, juvenile, and selfish to keep their potential jounin instructors from kicking their asses back to the Academy for another year.

“There’s going to be some kind of unwritten and unspecified psych test after we pass the exam,” declares Minato during one of their last minute training sessions.

“I doubt it’ll be that hard,” says Mikoto when Fugaku’s dark eyes widen even though it’s not like he’ll have to take the test at all. “There’re plenty of dumb chuunin.”

Fugaku smiles as Minato hisses that she shouldn’t be so disrespectful. How someone so brilliant can be so meek is as baffling to him as it is to Mikoto.

“Besides,” continues Minato, “psychological tests are rarely looking for intelligence. They’re certainly never looking for intelligence _alone._ ”

“Maybe not,” agrees Mikoto, “but brains probably help.”

Still, she can’t resist the urge to ask Rakshasha about it during dinner later that same day.

“I’m not going to _tell_ you what the real final test is,” snaps Rakshasha in between enthusiastic slurps of homemade ramen. “If the jounin gets even a whiff of an inkling that someone primed you, he’ll kick your ass out of his squad faster than a Grass ninja runs from a hawk. And there’s multiple versions of the test depending on what kind of troops the higher ups are short on anyway.”

At least Rakshasha’s in a good mood so Mikoto doesn’t have to deal with a lecture about what happens to people stupid enough to voice their stupid questions.

“It’s not such a big thing,” Rakshasha says as she heads to her room, ruffling Mikoto’s hair. “Just ask yourself what kind of soldier you’d want on your team if you were a jounin and go from there. You should be fine.”

What kind of soldier would she want on her team if she was a jounin? That one’s easy enough. She would want Minato—his strength, his intelligence, level-headedness, and his loyalty. Especially his loyalty.

* * *

The final exam is anticlimactic in its simplicity. Mikoto takes less than half the time allotted to complete it and finds Minato dozing on a bench outside Academy after she leaves the classroom. She sits beside him and sighs, then shakes his shoulder gently. “How’s it a good idea to not sleep the night before a test?” she asks when the blue of his eyes becomes visible.

“Give me a break,” says Minato, straightening up with a huff. “You know I can’t meditate on command like you do. The practical part of the test is probably a joke too anyway.”

“Breathe,” says Mikoto, certain that Minato wouldn’t be so flippant if his belly wasn’t buzzing with nerves.

The Hyuuga twins saunter out of the Academy . . . well, Hiashi saunters and Hizashi follows behind readjusting his ever present hat. Mikoto remembers Minato’s prediction about who will be on her team and notes that whenever Hiashi deigns to wear a hat as well, Hizashi is exponentially more confident.

“Do you want to do some last minute practicing?” asks Minato.

“No,” Mikoto mumbles impatiently. Practicing _would_ help Minato calm down but there’s literally zero chance that he’ll fail and Mikoto’s in no mood to deal with his irrational insecurities.

The next person out of class is none other than Kushina and it almost makes Mikoto acquiesce to Minato’s whiny demands to pleeeease help him take his mind off the test. Kushina changed after what Mikoto has taken to calling The Incident—capital letters and all—in her mind.

There are no more baggy shirts hanging as low as her knees. Kushina has been wearing tight mesh and small shirts that don’t cover her belly button. Her red hair remains as untamed as ever, but she now pulls her bangs out of her face. The last time one of the boys called her a slut, Kushina waited until the next time they were assigned to practice taijutsu together and dislocated his shoulder. Their teacher didn’t make much noise when she babbled a weak excuse about forgetting her own strength sometimes.

Mikoto’s throat clenches when Kushina’s eyes meet hers. Her face warms. She’s been caught staring like a pre-genin.

“. . . What?” Minato asks suddenly and Mikoto bites back a curse and pulls him up by the shirt.

“Like I’ll have to deal her anytime soon anyway,” she mutters as she drags him away.

“Deal with who?” asks Minato as they stumbled into one of the small fields set aside for pre-genin training.

Mikoto answers him with a well-aimed punch which he evades with infuriatingly little effort. She catches a glimpse of worried blue eyes and lunges, moving so quickly that even he can’t split his concentration between evasive maneuvers and pointed questions.

* * *

Of course, Mikoto will have to deal with Kushina almost every day until she becomes a chuunin. Of course.

After the scores are posted (no real controversies about who’s in the top ten) Fugaku and Hiashi receive their headbands and return home. The remaining brand new troops wait around for their new commanding officer and Mikoto sits in one of the front rows a foot away from Hizashi and Kushina, who are also separated from each other by an arm’s length. At least Kushina didn’t seem bothered by the turn of events; certainly not as much as she was when Naoki shuffled to Minato and Caeda.

Mikoto very damned nearly rolls her eyes. If some kid she was determined to protect—if Fugaku ended up in a team with Minato--she’d be relieved. Kushina’s obviously dangerous but there’s no indication that she’s particularly _smart_ and it makes Mikoto look down at her feet so her dark hair hides the smile she can’t keep from her lips. She can handle Kushina, just like any clever fox can steal meat from any over-confident tiger.

Though all things considered, it’s probably not the best analogy to use.

“Well,” their teacher says, “it hasn’t been _completely_ terrible. Your jounin will pick you up soon; I suggest you relax and please don’t make me look like an asshole.” The other teams resume chattering excitedly as he makes his exit.

“. . . We will be expected to work well as a cohesive unit,” Mikoto says, stealing a glance towards Minato and his new teammates. Caeda and Naoki are hanging on his every word and suddenly, Mikoto hates them both.

“I’m sure we’ll manage it,” says Hizashi, voice pitched soft and soothing.

Mikoto wants to punch him. She does not need to be treated like a spooked, irrational dog. The whole point of a genin squad to weed out ninja who can’t perform well in small units—to find those that can’t become cogs in a well-oiled machine so they can be thrown out and replaced with better pieces. How can they do that if they couldn’t even hold a conversation?

“Don’t worry your proper clan brat heads about it,” says Kushina before Mikoto can snap something unpleasant. “We won’t have to do shit.” She sighs and leans back on the bench, looking up at the ceiling and biting her lower lip.

“Not for a while anyway,” agrees Hizashi with a little shrug.

Mikoto glances at his almost-white eyes, stares at the long, wavy curtain of Kushina’s flaming hair, and then hears someone who sounds a lot like Minato mumble _d’uh_ in her mind. What are the chances that a team formed for amorphous political reasons will be dissolved just because they don’t show any evidence of compatibility right away? Honestly, what’s been happening to her wits lately? Or has Mikoto simply underestimated just how many of her insights can be attributed to Minato’s clever observations and encouraging smiles?

Their jounin turns out to be a stocky middle aged green-eyed man with thinning grey hair and a jagged scar running across his neck. As he leads them towards one of the benches lining the hiking trail to the Monument, he tells them his name is Masato and that he specializes in Strong Fist when he’s not smuggling goods in and out of Lightning Country. He’s trained three separate genin squads in twelve years and had to guide the last one through the Second Secret War and the ugly months following it. “Most of ‘hem are still alive,” he says with a fond smile and a look at the sky, “and they don’t got fancy clans lookin’ out for ‘hem.”

It’s won’t be pleasant if her jounin’s carrying a grudge about clans but at least he doesn’t sound particularly bitter about it.

“And if it ain’t little Kushina!” Masato continues, shooting a beaming smile Kushina’s way. “I’m glad you joined us proper, kiddo.”

Kushina makes a noise that tries to be a snort and cough at the same time and then pulls her knees to her chest, for a brief and disorienting moment looking like a young girl and not a like an exploding tag about to go off.

Mikoto steals a glance at Hizashi out of the corner of her eye. He angles his face towards her a tiny bit but there’s no tightening of his features or any other indication of hostility. It’s not an invitation for friendship or anything but it’s an acknowledgement. Mikoto suspects they’ll be needing a bit of clan brat to clan brat solidarity in the coming months, never mind that their respective clans get along about as well as wild cats and dogs.

* * *

“Don’t let that old bastard’s simpleton act fool you,” Rakshasha tells Mikoto the night of her graduation. “No ninja—no _smuggler_ —lives as long as him without a solid brain between his ears. There must be a reason he was assigned the Nine Tails.”

A couple of days later Mikoto lets her know that Masato was the jounin who guarded Kushina while she made the trek from the ruins of Uzushio to Konoha. Kushina is eager to follow his instructions and seems to glow like a much younger girl when he praises her. It’s odd.

“It’s as good as explanation as any,” says Rakshasha as Mikoto braids her hair. “Make sure to keep an eye out for the girl. And on the Hyuuga too while you’re at it. Keep an eye out for everything, actually. Sarutobi’s trying some political shit right now with this team.”

There wasn’t even a hidden psychological exam her team had to pass so . . . yes, most likely. Rakshasha was not surprised, which means she knows something she doesn’t feel like sharing with Mikoto for some reason. She does nothing more than constantly warn Mikoto to be careful.

Mikoto tried talking it over with Minato a bit but he’s over the moon about his new team. He gets along with Caeda and Naoki and has no problem with silly D-rank shores. Also, their jounin is none other than the famous Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin.

“I’m learning so much!” he says after a vague comment about his surprise when Kushina was assigned to her team. “I mean, he’s a bit of a pervert and not the best at explaining things but he hates D-ranked missions and lets us do whatever we like most of the day. And when I ask him a question, he has an answer for me almost always!”

Mikoto is thrilled that he’s having so much fun, she really is, but she also really wishes he would spare a second or two to help her come up with a plan to handle her incredibly awkward situation.

“How close are the Hyuuga twins?” the Elders ask her the next time it’s Rakshasha’s turn to host their meeting.

Mikoto assumes they’re very close but she has no specifics about it. The Elders—Rakshasha included—all look at her like she’s brain damaged before demanding that she make an effort to befriend her teammates.

It turns out to be easier than she anticipated, at least with Hizashi. One afternoon, after a particularly brutal sparing lesson with Masato-sensei, Mikoto lets Hizashi see her rubbing her left calf gingerly. Masato-sensei and Kushina are a little ways away doing some one-on-one training and there has to be something to all the lessons that boys are more willing to open up to a woman if they think she's vulnerable.

“I can help with that,” offers Hizashi.

“. . . How?” asks Mikoto, hoping her surprise at how quickly the ruse worked helps make her seem genuinely spontaneous.

Hizashi opens his mouth and then closes it again, the corners of his pale eyes crinkling. “Hard to explain,” he mumbles, sliding a little closer to her. “A part of your calf muscle contracted . . . incorrectly and I can help you slide it back into place?” He talks like she might if she was trying to describe a bright blue sky to a blind man.

“You mean the muscle’s knotted?” asks Mikoto. 

Hizashi nods quickly and Mikoto wonders if the Hyuuga have names for such things or if they all just point and say look.

“How can you fix it?” she asks.

“Chakra,” says Hizashi. “It would hurt.”

Mikoto bets it would but she knows she’d be able to handle the pain. Letting a Hyuuga mess around with her chakra, on the other hand, is a risk she’s not entirely sure she can take. She looks at Hizashi’s white eyes, takes in his relaxed shoulders and downward-tilted chin (signs of submission, she can tell that much, but not whether they’re a fabrication in order to slip under her guards). With a nod, she extends her leg and suppresses a shudder when the veins around Hizashi’s eyes bulge as places his palm over the skin of her calf.

“It’ll just be a second,” he says. Then he presses down and Mikoto gulps at a brief flash of hot, stabbing pain. It ebbs a little but doesn’t disappear. If anything, it gets weirder because the muscle starts moving on its own, her toes pointing downwards out of their own volition. Except not really.

It’s a good thing Hizashi backs off and slides away because she’d been just about to pounce for this pale throat.

“It should be much better now,” says Hizashi, gaze directed away from her. Hardly a sign of deference when she knows he can see her perfectly well.

Gingerly, she flexes her calf. Her toes point up and down in a fluid movement and even though there’s still a dull ache pulsing in her calf, she’s sure she’d be able to run miles without a problem. “Thank you,” she says without having to fake sincerity. It can take several painful massages to repair a knotted muscle.

“Make sure to rest it,” says Hizashi.

They fall into a tense silence. Mikoto’s belly clenches the way it used to back at the Academy when she was trying to solve a difficult question and the answer was in her brain, just trapped behind a foggy film of confusion. She has a chance to earn a foundation of camaraderie with Hizashi but it’ll evaporate if she lets the exchange end in a tense note.

“What’s it like?” she ventures finally, staring at his profile. She waits until he’s turned his pale eyes towards her before continuing. “To see the insides of a person?”

“What’s it like _not_ to see them?”

Mikoto nods before lying down on the grass. The sound of leaves rustling is soothing and if she was home she’d consider napping. Maybe she does take a nap because next thing she knows, the loud thunderclap of an explosion startles her off the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have returned after weeks and weeks of silence! Hopefully I'll get more time to write in the coming weeks. I'm planning for a beach vacation!


	5. The War

Iwa's declaration of war against Konoha is so elegant Mikoto can't help but be impressed. They had several of their kunoichi marry Konoha civilians and then petitioned for their "brothers" (often young boys just entering puberty) to be allowed into the village as well. Some were young enough to become genin. Others settled for starting romances with chuunin working in administrative offices. A few enterprising girls started affairs with jounin. 

Mikoto doesn't know all the details (she bets not the highest ranking ninja in the village know all the details) but it looks like the double agents waited until Iwa made a move for critical bridge along the Kusa-Konoha border. Regardless, most of the village chuunin and combat clans have been dispatched, leaving the Uchiha, a handful of Hyuuga, and hundreds of genin to run Konoha in the meantime.

"I've been saying for years it's way too easy for people to move into Konoha," says one of the Elders a week after the police force has been meticulously weeding out Iwa spies from civilian districts.

"It's risky to let so many people in," Hizashi adds later in the month, when the police force is looking more harried than Mikoto's ever seen them. There have been so many fights and murders - between civilians and shinobi both - that police officers who squeeze in four hours of sleep a night are considered lazy. 

"But we wouldn't have half the resources we do without the people who live here," argues Minato after Konoha officially deploys a platoon of chuunin to guard Fire Country merchants travelling near the Grass border. Older genin (who would've never been promoted in peace time) take their administrative roles in the village. "Would our radios be as reliable as they are if Chou-chou hadn't married that quirky girl from Water country? Would our buildings be as sturdy as they are if we hadn't let those brothers from Rain join us after they defected from their village? If we were as closed off as most Hidden Villages, we wouldn't even have  _Byakuugan._ Letting people in is just a risk we have to live with."

It'll be a very long time before the rest of Konoha agrees with Minato. 

* * *

Mikoto's team doesn't handle many D rank missions anymore. There are too many fights to break up, too many suspected spies to keep an eye on, too many minor explosions and fires to handle, too many shifts to spend patrolling along Konoha's walls and not enough Hyuuga to go around. There is too much blood staining Konoha's streets. 

"Iwa ninja look the same as Konoha ninja on the inside, you know," Hizashi says one day after a young woman holding her father's mangled corpse to her chest screams at him for not seeing Iwa coming. He'd been trying to heal a nasty burn along the girl's forearm.

The Hyuuga are getting almost as much hate over what's happening as the Uchiha. Byakuugan boasts as many rumors as Sharingan and most layman believe it can see the future. The Uchiha elders are preening with smug satisfaction because the village favorites are quickly falling from favor.

"We're all the same deep down," Kushina tells Hizashi, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

Mikoto suspects Hizashi was more surprised than she was the first time Kushina hugged him, but now he takes whatever comfort she chooses to offer without a word. He lays his head on her chest (Mikoto still finds it half miraculous Kushina allows that much considering every other boy in the village still looks around nervously before making any comments about her ample breast). Hizashi doesn't cry, allowing only a long sigh and fisting his hands at the hem of Kushina's purple mesh shirt. Lately, the villagers treat Hizashi even worse than they treat her. Either they've forgotten Kushina's a foreigner, or they treat each other so badly their hatred towards outsiders is hardly notable. 

It's a quiet afternoon for once, or as it quiet as they get in Konoha since the war started. Mikoto stares at her teammates huddled together, close enough that the wind mingles their hair until it looks like a curtain of coal and fire. She hugs her knees to her chest, stupidly grateful they're at least willing to be vulnerable in front of her. 

* * *

 Missions get increasingly brutal as tensions between Konoha and Iwa intensify. 

"We've haven't done on of these in a while," Kushina says a second before crushing a Grass ninja's neck beneath her heel. 

Mikoto twists the arm of the lanky street vendor she's holding back so he settles for spitting at Kushina's back, yelling something about Fire country whores and Konoha's reckoning. With an impatient snort, Kushina slides in front of him and knocks him out.

"He better not have a concussion," admonishes Mikoto as she makes sure the bastard doesn't crack his head as he falls to the floor.

Kushina shrugs, scratching beneath her headband and tucking a few stray locks of bright red hair behind her ear. She opens her mouth but Hizashi's voice comes through the radio. "Something's strange going at the Red Lights district, 3rd street between _Tso-Tso's_ and _Midnight Lips."_

"Take him to your cousins," Kushina tells Mikoto, gesturing at the unconscious Iwa spies. "Meet us at the Red Light district and bring back up if the police has any to spare."

Mikoto drags the spy to the police station, tells one of her harried looking cousins where her team has gone, and then she's heading for one of the villages deserted training grounds. She spots the edge of The Forest of Death before she stops on her tracks and works on controlling her breathing. Nothing, not guilt and certainly not fear, prompts her to turn around and join her teammates so Mikoto finds a tall tree a climbs until she's cradled by branches so thick the bright summer sun has trouble getting through the leaves. She closes her eyes, starts focusing on the air going through her nose and filling her chest. Fifteen breaths later, Kushina, Hizashi, and the war are minor annoyances at best.

She is a grain of sand in a beach. Or maybe a grain of sand on the ocean floor.

Before the war (only months ago though sometimes it feels like a lifetime) Mikoto had been so sure she was destined for great things. And why? Because of her performance on Academy exams? Now, she's on a team with a Hyuuga, thanking the spirits for his eyes every time he warns guides her through a building teeming with enemy ninja. She can't even say she's the muscle of the team since Kushina's a goddamned juggernaut. Even without the Kyuubi's chakra she fights like a demon and with most heavy hitters stuck at the borders, Konoha relies on her to bring down any attackers the remaining Uchiha and Hyuuga can't subdue or don't have the time or resources to deal with.

Mikoto can't adopt the traditional kunoichi role. She's far from ugly but she can't seem to fake the slightest bit of interest in her targets, sexual or otherwise. Besides, she's not even the most beautiful member of her team - both Kushina and Hizashi are so striking she fades to the background whenever all three of them are together. 

"We're in the middle of a war and you're whining because your teammates are highly competent and self-sufficient?" Rakshasha snaps later that night, after Mikoto has come home and reluctantly admitted she's been depressed because she feels superfluous in her own team. "This is no time to be a glory chaser! If the other two really work so well - and unless your cousins in the police force are full of shit, they _do_ _-_ then you make sure to help them out. If that means acting like their secretary in missions, then so be it. Train on your time, not while the village's all but crumbling under a mountain of Iwa spies."

Mikoto tries to take the words to heart. Intellectually, she does. Her heart rejects them though, and next day when Hizashi and Kushina don't even bother to ask where she dissapeared to the previous afternoon, Mikoto looks up a the faces of the Hokage on the mountain side and imagines her own image looking back at her.

* * *

"What's it like?" Fugaku asks her one day as he helps her clean a series of abrasions adorning back side of her left arm. A spy almost sliced Hizashi's head off that afternoon; missed only because Mikoto intercepted him and drove a shuriken into his neck when they both rolled off a steep ravine. Hizashi had been too depleted to heal her so Mikoto walked him to the Hyuga compound and them shambled home, her dark clothes stinking like burned copper.

Mikoto's sure Hizashi's going to stumble into an overzealous Iwa spy after one of his long sessions healing burns, deep gashes, and broken bones at the hospital. Kushina can't follow him around like a guard dog all the time, especially not when she goes off to fume away her random bouts of shaking rage. 

"What's it like?" repeats Fugaku. Every day, he seems older. The small birthmarks under his eyes stand out like scars. "To kill, I mean."

"Messier than you'd expect," says Mikoto. 

There are so many things the mannequins and Clones at the Academy can't simulate. Blood isn't hot a slick for very long, turns gooey and lukewarm easily then sticks to skin and clothes worse than oil. Worse, it doesn't always spray in a predictable direction so even the most experienced of shinobi ends up drenched in the stuff. Lots of people empty their bowels in their moment of death too and it's enough to make Mikoto want to give up eating. She doesn't want to stink up the place too badly when she dies.

"Easier too," she adds. She doesn't remember the first person she killed, couldn't even say if it was a boy or a girl or even how old they were. All she remembers is relief. 

"I should go rest," she tells Fugaku before he can ask any more questions. ""We're delivering a message to one of the nearby camps tomorrow."

"You have more cuts," protests Fugaku.

"I'll clean them myself," says Mikoto. "And Hizashi will close them tomorrow."

* * *

 "Those Iwa bastards can make any hole in the ground into a fucking cave," says Sensei as they set out next morning. "be on your guard."

It's the first time their team leaves the village. Their success (or lack of thereof) will decide how far they'll rise in the ranks. Mikoto's still oddly disinterested, notes that Hizashi and Kushina are standing more paces away from each other than they usually do like she's watching from behind a foggy window. She has a headache.

A storm catched them when they're halway to the camp, after they've left the thick canpy of Konoha's forests behind. Mikoto shivers and Hizashi steps closer to Kushina, who's burning away excess chakra to keep warm. They're huddled together moments later, their earlier frostiness apparently forgotten. Masato-sensei left the tent to relieve himself so Mikoto could ask her teammates - Kushina - to lend her some heat. She could just get closer to them.

Mikoto's still trying to decide and then her ears are trying to burst with silence. 

Her heart thunders and then she's sliding away from a vicious fist glowing with red chakra. She has a moment (maybe) to think that  _Kushina's_ chakra is red and then she's dodging strike after strike, ears still filled with nothing. The red fist makes contact with her right side and it burns and aches at the same time. Someone grabs her left arm and she's spinning around, right hand wrapped around a kunai. The enemy dodges so Mikoto crouches, ignoring the pounding ache on her right side, and strikes again. They move aside and get behind her once more. Someone wraps their arms around her shoulders from behind and wrestles her to the ground. She squirms and tries to scream even though every breath making the pain on her right side worse.

Mikoto is going to die. She is going to die away from home with a team that won't spare any grief for her. Rakshasha will probably get drunk and choke on her own vomit. 

"Snap out of it, come  _on!"_ screams a voice into her ear. "What kind of Uchiha dies because of genjutsu?" 

She recognizes Hizashi's voice, louder and more frantic than she's ever heard it, just as the pain on her right sharpens and spreads to her shoulder. Her first instinct is to fight harder but she knows she needs to still or Hizashi might lose patience and decides she's lsot to the genjutsu and kills her. 

"Situation report," she says and another ache becomes apparent. Someone (Hizashi?) bit her neck. 

"We've been ambushed," says Hizashi, getting off her then helping her to her feet. "They did something to Kushina and she's gone beserk. Masato-sensei's trying to calm her down. She got your liver pretty bad and your gallbladder's pretty much done for."

Every breath makes Mikoto suppress a wince. It distracts her from how clear everything looks all of a sudden. She sees specks of dust dragged around by the wind and the falling leaves are moving slower than she expects. There's a layer of ozone masking the usual scent of the earth. She can see the chakra pushing through the swollen veins around Hizashi's white eyes.

"We have to -"

Before Hizashi can finish, a flash of red blood chakra is bursting between. Mikoto can't help but wince when she lands a few feet away, eyes fixed on the red blur (Kushina?) trying to rip Hizashi apart like a rag doll.

 _Run_ , a voice whispers to Mikoto. She's invisible to her team on most days and now that might be what saves her -

\- except Kushina didn't lose her mind out of nowhere. There's an enemy ninja trying to twist her thoughts around. She watches Hizashi dancing away from Kushina's erratic punches, gives it about ten minutes before he's too exhausted to defend himself, and continues to stand like a rabbit struck dumb by a predator. Hopefully, the enemy will continue to ignore her until she comes up with a plan.

There isn't anything to do. Mikoto is not fast enough to get help or strong enough to stop Kushina. Masato-sensei is either dead or incapacitated.

But if she runs, the Iwa illusionist will kill her. Hizashi at least _tried_ to save her. She should at least try to save him. 

* * *

What happens next drains Mikoto of so much chakra she has trouble keeping track of the people talking to her.

"You did it," says someone - Hizashi?. "She's coherent, at least."

Something important niggles at Mikoto's mind, so important that it cuts through the fog of pain dulling her senses.

"I killed him!" someone's gasping. "I ripped his throat right out."

"At least go find the bastards who made you."

"I'm no good I'm no good I'm no good - "

"I don't have _time_ for this, Mikoto's probably not going to make it!"

She _is_ going to die. Mikoto tries to cough but it comes out like a pitiful keening noise. Unbidden, an image of Kushina, her red hair wild and streaked wet with what can only be blood, flits through her mind's eye. Something old and bitter lives inside that girl but whatever it is, it doesn't scare Mikoto anymore. She holds its chains in her hand. Too bad her hand's going to die pretty soon.

"I don't have pain killers, Mikoto. I'm so sorry."

Something rips a scream out of her. She's grateful she has enough strength left to scream but it doesn't really matter. She blacks out before she can use it for anything meaningful.

* * *

She wakes to Minato's bright blue eyes narrowed with concern.

"Feels like forever since I last saw you," she says.

He lets out a shaky sigh and lays his head on the bed, his hand squeezing Mikoto's.

"Water," says Mikoto, frowning at the bitter, dry taste in her mouth.

"I'll go see if you're cleared to eat anything," says Minato. But he doesn't mover from her side. Doesn't even lift his head. "You're lucky to be alive. Hizashi had to do your surgery in the field. Looks like he didn't fuck it up to bad."

"Water," repeats Mikoto. She can't even begin to think about her teammates until her mouth stops feeling like someone stuffed an old dry hag in it and forgot about it.

Minato slips away with small, pained noise and Mikoto drifts in and out of consciousness until an older Hyuuga woman steps back into the room with Minato trailing behind her. Minato hovers like restless rabbit while the medic asks Mikoto a bunch of inane questions and demands that she wiggle her toes. Mikoto's only allowed a cup with small ice chips afterwards and she doesn't even have the energy to protest. "Lucky you," the Hyuuga says before stepping out with a promise to get her family. Mikoto doesn't feel much of anything besides annoyance. She listens to Minato's summary of the events that landed her in the hospital, growing more uncomfortable with every passing moment.

"You're sensei died," Minato says eventually. "He . . ."

"Kushina killed him," says Mikoto when Minato can't bring himself to finish. _I ripped his throat out_ and _I'm no good I'm no good I'm no good _.__ What a useless thing to remember.

"Anyway," continues Minato, "the whole mess triggered your Sharingan and it looks like it can . . . I don't know." Three words Minato despises. "I guess it can control bijuu chakra so you . . ."

"I made Kushina kill the illusionist," says Mikoto. It's all coming back to her in fragmented, blurry pieces.

"Hizashi says you depleted most of your chakra doing it," says Minato. "Then he had to take out your gallbladder cause it was . . . leaking."

"And Kushina?"

"Like you'd expect," answers Minato, shrugging.

Mikoto doesn't know what to expect about her. "I need more morphine," she says, completely ignoring every part of her that cries for clarity and control.

Next day, a team of medics comes by and decides she's well enough they can permanently close the wound Hizashi left on her belly. She's on some pretty amazing pain killers through it so she doesn't remember it happening. They say she can't go home until she's had a full meal and gone to the bathroom. The Hyuuga woman spends about half an hour explaining how she'll have to change her diet now that she doesn't have stored bile to help her digest fatty food.

Hizashi visits her a few hours later while Mikoto paces around her small room gazing out at the bright sun while her hands threaten to start shaking. Something about him looks older. "Thank you," says Mikoto, taking a step towards him.

Hizashi shrugs, twisting his lips into something that doesn't look like a smile. "They promoted me," he says, taking a step towards her. They are close enough she can see a very pale, very small freckle at the corner of his lower lip. "Something about needing more surgeons."

"Congratulations," says Mikoto. She sways forward until her forehead is pressing against his chin even though she's not dizzy or in pain. The pain medications have worn off and she's no longer in any pain. Konoha's medics are the best in the world.

"I wish I could say it's been fun," says Hizashi.

Mikoto snorts, thinking of what his family probably expected of him. He ended up in a team with the Kyuubi with nothing more than Uchiha without a Sharingan and an old smuggler to back him up. An Uchiha with only the most rudimentary idea of what Sharingan can do, apparently. "Take care of yourself," Mikoto tells him, laying a hand on his shoulder. She should ask about Kushina but for some reason the worlds get tangled somewhere in her throat.

Hizashi shifts until his lips brush Mikoto's forehead. She exhales loudly and grips at the sleeve of his mesh shirt, closing her eyes tightly. "If we - "

Without finishing whatever he'd wanted to say, Hizashi suddenly steps away from her. For a second Mikoto is disoriented, her fingers still trying to grip the threads of his shirt. Then Rakshasha is stepping into the room, Fugaku following behind her. "You're looking better than I expected," says Rakshasha while Fugaku stares at her with wide, dark eyes.

Hizashi bows at Rakshasha, which makes her smirk at nothing in particular. Then he looks straight at Mikoto's eyes and says "I'll see you later," before turning towards the door and nodding at Fugaku on his way out. It is very pointedly not a goodbye their squad is no more now that their sensei is dead and he's a chuunin.

"Have you taken a shit yet?" Rakshasha asks, snapping Mikoto right back into the depressing hospital room. She shakes her head and heads to the small bathroom attached to the damned place, trying not to smile at Fugaku's embarrassed blush.

* * *

By later, Hizashi means "next morning". He's waiting at her front door when Mikoto returns from the shrine, her mind still whirling with the story God's Eyes. Rakshasha snorts when he bows at her then says something about a weekly _Go_ tournament among the Elders before limping out to the road.

"It's more of a drinking session," Mikoto tells Hizashi with an awkward smile. With a standard flak jacket, he looks even older.

He gestures to the house, reminding Mikoto to invite him inside. She's debating whether or not to offer him tea when he asks if ANBU has spoken to her about what happened.

"No," says Mikoto. "Why . . ." Would ANBU be involved in a random mission gone to hell? Not all of them involve the Kyuubi losing it but with Kushina that was always a possibility.

"I can't even guess if that's good or not," says Hizashi, turning away and walking towards their window. "Aren't you going to ask me about Kushina?"

_I'm no good I'm no good I'm no good . . ._

"I remember her being fine," says Mikoto.

"Then you don't remember very well," says Hizashi, turning back to look at her. "We need to ask for Brotherhood."

"What?"

Squads can file a request to be considered an official team regardless of rank. It's a long process, almost like a clan marriage but way more complicated. Members of such a team are basically kissing away any opportunity to join ANBU or any other special squad and they'll rarely - if ever - be assigned any solo missions. Outside of the obligatory Ino-Shika-Chou team every generation, it's almost unheard of because any such team is only as useful as it's weakest member and it never looks good if one of them dies and the other two go on like nothing happened.

"What?" Mikoto repeats. "Why?"

"Kushina just killed a Konoha jounin - her _jounin-sensei_ ," explains Hizashi, except it's no explanation at all. "After she's spent so much time trying to protect this place, to _belong_ here . . . even if ANBU decides to look the other way, which they _won't_ , if I - if _we_ just walk away . . . and I'll _have_ to if we're not on the same squad anymore."

Hizashi has never sounded so incoherent though, in all fairness, Mikoto has never heard him speak for so long. She would ask what he's talking about one more time but she's already said it twice and she doesn't want to sound as dumb as she feels.

"We need to file for Brotherhood," repeats Hizashi while Kushina stares at him.

"No," says Mikoto.

"Your family would love the idea," says Hizashi.

"Probably," agrees Mikoto. "But I don't. Why would I?"

"To help your teammate," says Hizashi.

"The one who's been looking through me since this squad was formed?" asks Mikoto. "The one who almost me killed me a couple of days ago?"

"Because of an enemy genjutsu specialist," says Hizashi.

"Genjutsu or not, she didn't touch _you_ , did she?"

"What exactly are you implying?" demands Hizashi.

Mikoto doesn't even know. All she knows is that Kushina has been nothing but unpleasant since the day she swaggered into her Academy class. Before that even. She's treated Minato - _Minato_ , who's practically made of kindness and sunshine - like garbage. She turned Hikaru's brain into a wet sponge. She does nothing but look down her nose at Mikoto.

"I don't owe her anything," says Mikoto.

"You owe _me_ ," says Hizashi.

"No, I don't," says Mikoto, shaking her head. She doesn't have Sharingan activated but she's still feels like she's seeing Hizashi for the first time. Or maybe she's just seeing _herself_ clearly for the first time. Maybe _he's_ the kunoichi in their team.

"I saved your life," says Hizashi. "Kushina wasn't going to lay a hand of me. I could've run."

"I didn't ask you to save me," says Mikoto. She isn't going to shackle herself to wild, unpredictable beast of a girl who acts like Mikoto's less than the dirt underneath her sandals just because Hizashi Hyuuga has nice cheekbones. "And I already thanked you yesterday anyway. Now get out of my house."

* * *

The Elders, Rakshasha included, ask her to file for Brotherhood with Hizashi and Kushina.

Mikoto has to literally bite her tongue the next time she sees Hizashi. No one has mentioned him by name but Mikoto just _knows_ he's orchestrated the situation. For Kushina, she only spares a glance though it's startling to see her shoulders hunched. 

They hand in the surprisingly simple paperwork together and Mikoto can't help but hope they'll be rejected.

They aren't, of course. For the first time in . . . forever probably, the Uchiha and Hyuuga are in total agreement about something.

Hizashi announces they'll be meeting every day in the same spot as usual and it doesn't matter how soft and congenial his tone is. As a chuunin, he's the de facto squad leader and Mikoto isn't going to forget that he maneuvered her into a team she doesn't want. Permanently.

Kushina actually apologizes to her and Mikoto surprises herself by accepting the apology without reservations. They'll probably never be friends but Mikoto knows who's really dangerous in her team.

The day is grey but otherwise calm. Mikoto heads home in a slow pace, ignoring how the villagers glance at her with suspicion and sometimes dread. Konoha is a war zone and ninja aren't a comforting sight in any war zone.

All things considered, she's not as angry as she should be but maybe, that's a good thing. She'll need to be as coldly calculating as Hizashi if she hopes to make him regret using her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started writing this story, I expected to finish it quicker and in a very different spot. For starters, I meant for Kushina and Mikoto to be close friends by the end of it. I meant for Hizashi to be almost an afterthought. I'd hope to get to the war by chapter three, the latest. I guess I'm still not too good at outlining things or controlling where a story is going.
> 
> If I could do it all over again, I'd make sure Kushina had more screen time. For some reason, most of her characterization happened with Hizashi and this story was first and foremost about Mikoto. I wish I had more time to write because I'm tempted to write the whole thing through Kushina's POV. And Mikoto would barely be a blip in that story.
> 
> Though it's not perfect and not what I planned, I'm still really proud of this story. I read it over and honestly felt like I'm a little better at writing thanks to not giving up on it even when I was frustrated.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read and commented and I apologize for not responding to all of you. I promise I read all your comments even if I don't always answer.


End file.
